"Good Ship Venus", also known as "Friggin' in the Riggin'", is a bawdy drinking song devised to shock with ever increasingly lewd and debauched sexual descriptions of the eponymous ship's loose-moraled crew. The tune usually used (especially for the chorus) is "In and Out the Windows".

It is possible that this song was inspired by an actual event, where a female convict (Charlotte Badger), sailing on the colonial brigantine Venus, convinced members of the crew to commandeer the vessel, sailing from Port Dalrymple in Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania) in 1806.[4]

Despite various reports, the ultimate fate of the Venus is unknown. This may have led to speculation by those left behind, with fantasies leading to the creation of this drinking song. One of the verses also refers to a 'Charlotte':

The captain's daughter Charlotte
Was born and bred a harlot
Her thighs at night
Were lily white
By morning they were scarlet.

Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Venus between 1758 and 1972. The most recent was a destroyer launched in 1943, which was converted into a fast frigate in 1951, and served during the 1950s and 60s, to the surprise of those who assumed the name in the song to be apocryphal. (She was a sister ship of HMS Troubridge, whose name inspired the fictional "HMS Troutbridge" in the long-running BBC radio comedy The Navy Lark of the same period).

Oscar Brand recorded an early version in 1952, but the best-known version was recorded by the Britishpunk band Sex Pistols, which appears on their Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle album, and was the finale track in the film of the same name. Released as part of a double-A side, it reached No. 3 in the UK singles chart in 1979 and was the band's biggest selling single.

When a ship was required in The Goon Show it was often named the "Good Ship Venus" or "HMS Venus", one of several references to dirty jokes the Goons managed to get past the 1950s BBC censors.

In British director Ken Russell's 2005 "Hot Pants Trilogy", "The Goodship Venus" short was billed as a musical trip around Cape Horn with "as horny a crew of sex-crazed sailors who ever sailed the seven seas." The trilogy received its world premiere at the Oldenburg Festival, Germany in Sept 2005.